LIFE

Kim Kardashian, along with her husband Kanye West, when they visited the memorial to the Armenian Genocide in Yerevan in 2015 [YouTube]

16:00 28 Apr 2016
James Dempsey
16:00 Thursday 28 April 2016

While Kim Kardashian is better known for her Internet-breaking photographs and social media-baiting Instagram posts, the multimillionaire entrepreneur is making headlines for political reasons, having written a post condemning the Wall Street Journal for publishing an advert that denies the Armenian Genocide took place.

The advert, containing the words “Truth = Peace” and “Stop the Allegations,” the full-page advertisement redirects readers to FactCheckArmenia.com, a website which claims that the events of 1915, which lead to the deaths of 1.5m Armenians, do not legally qualify as genocide – despite Raphael Lemkin, the Jewish lawyer who coined the word, having been inspired by the evens of the American Genocide to do so.

“For nearly a century, the Armenian lobby has attempted to portray these actions as a willful [sic], deliberate attempt to commit genocide of the Armenian people – a specific crime which is defined by international law,” the website states. “Nothing could be further from the truth and a detailed examination of the broader context of history paints a vastly different picture.”

Kardashian, an Armenian-American, did not mince her words when writing a blog on the matter on her website, saying: “Money talks, and right now it’s talking shit.

“For the Wall Street Journal to publish something like this is reckless, upsetting and dangerous. It’s one thing when a shitty tabloid profits from a made-up scandal, but for a trusted publication like WSJ to profit from genocide – it’s shameful and unacceptable.”

Responding to media queries as to why the paper had run the controversial ad in the first place, a spokesperson for the newspaper said, “We accept a wide range of advertisements, including those with provocative viewpoints. While we review ad copy for issues of taste, the varied and divergent views expressed belong to the advertisers.”

Kardashian, who last year wrote an essay for TIME magazine on how attending the centenary commemoration of the genocide in the Armenian capital of Yerevan had personally affected her, felt the WSJ wasn’t putting forth a “provocative viewpoint,” rather “spreading lies.”

“It’s totally morally irresponsible and, most of all, it’s dangerous,” she said. "If this had been an ad denying the Holocaust, or pushing some 9/11 conspiracy theory, would it have made it to print?"